(date uncertain)
“You are an odd person, Ronny,” said the teacher. On reflection, Ron says her remark now seems neither negative or positive, but it did stay with him forty years. He often asks himself, “What should an odd person do in this situation?”
Benign or otherwise, name-calling brings our children come home from school crying. Without thinking, we tell them that “sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you” but it is not true. Words can hurt.
Someone makes a thoughtless joke. A peer says something in anger. A teacher makes an offhand comment. Those words devastate us. We cannot forget them. No doubt about it, words do have power, not only to inflict pain but also to change the way we think and act.
The book of Proverbs has much to say about words. For instance, they are “deep waters” and “a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”
Words can be negative: “When words are many, sin is not absent” or “Mere talk leads to poverty” or “Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than him. . .”
Words can also be positive. “The words of the pure are pleasant” and “A gentle answer turns away wrath” and “An anxious heart weighs a man down but a kind word cheers him up.”
The Bible clearly says that words have power and that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Could that be why God inspired New Testament writers to give a special name to His Son, Jesus Christ? John says, “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was made flesh and lived among us.”
In our mind, a word is a symbol. In contrast, during the time the New Testament was written, their Greek-dominated world thought that “word” (or “logos”) meant much more. For them “word” was the rational order of the world, the god that was behind everything. “Word” was also the means by which their god communicated to them.
The Bible writers picked up this term “logos” or “word” and applied it to Jesus. But they were not thinking of a vague god like Hermes nor dreaming up some way to link human beings to the various Greek deities. Instead, logos (or word) described the link between the Creator and the world He made. The logos was God, stepping into human flesh and revealing Himself to us.
This Word is ultimate power — demonstrated as Jesus spoke peace into troubled water and troubled hearts. By a word, He healed the sick, raised the dead, rid tortured souls of demonic influence, changed water to wine, and multiplied a lunch into a banquet. Whatever He said, it happened.
Further, by this Word God communicates His very nature and heart. In the compassion of Jesus, He shows us that He loves us. In Jesus’ rebukes and stern warnings to the Pharisees, God shows us that He hates sin and religious hypocrisy. As we observe Jesus going willingly to the cross and dying for our sin, God communicates His plan of redemption and that He did not abandon us to our failure. When Jesus rose from the dead, God shows His power over that great and final enemy.
This Word from God is strong yet vulnerable, righteous and holy yet willing to redeem. All that God is became wrapped up in this God-man so God could reveal Himself to us.
Our words are not like the Living or written Word of God, yet there is a lesson for us in that power. When we speak, we also communicate our hearts to other people. An unkind word indicates our lack of compassion. A thoughtless word shows that we do not care enough about our listeners to think before we open our mouths. A gracious word shows that grace has touched our lives.
Sticks and stones do break bones, but just as God’s Word brought eternal life, our words can have a great impact on someone’s daily life. We need to choose them carefully.
Showing posts with label name-calling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label name-calling. Show all posts
Friday, September 1, 2017
Monday, July 10, 2017
Sticks and Stones .......... Parables 612
September 15, 1998
Bruised by the latest insult, Jonathan lingered in the locker room shower until the other boys went home. He tried to say “sticks and stones . . .” but knew that name-calling felt just as painful as rocks.
People can be unkind. When someone hurts us, we feel like fighting back even though retaliation usually makes matters worse. The Bible says “turn the other cheek” and that is tough enough, but God also wants us to deal with our attitude towards rock-tossers. We can be bitter and angry but hateful emotions are as harmful to us as is their name-calling or sticks and stones.
When predicaments perplex me, I think of Romans 8:28, “In all things, we know that God works for the good of those who love Him . . . .” If God can use everything for my good, what about people who seem set to harm me? How can He turn that around and make it profitable for me?
I remember an Alaskan potter, a tall woman with burlap cape to her ankles. She ran a potter’s wheel at the Kenai Craft Show. Dissatisfied with the plain pot on her wheel, she stood up and frowned at it. She took a few pieces of unformed clay in her hand and leaving the motorized wheel still turning, she stepped back about ten feet and started firing those bits at the pot.
As she battered it, an amazing thing happened. At first the clay on the wheel wobbled and reeled under the blows, but gradually it changed shape. Slowly under the potter’s hand, the plain pot became a beautiful and useful vessel.
In a similar incident, God told the prophet Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house. There he saw a potter working, “but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”
Then God told Jeremiah, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” He went on to explain that He planned disaster that they might be shaped and turn from their evil ways. However, each one would continue “in the stubbornness of his evil heart.” In response, God said, “I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed. . . .”
God uses many methods to discipline His people. If we can compare unshaped clay with people who do not know or follow God, then God can use them in our lives, for our good. He used the Babylonians just like the Alaskan potter used the blobs to shape His people, the Jews. After their captivity in Babylon, they never again worshiped pagan idols.
When Nathan the prophet chastened David for his sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, David felt the sting of his rebuke yet God used that pain to shape him into a beloved leader of Israel.
God even used “unshaped clay” against His own Son. Cruel men fully intended to destroy Jesus but God used their cross and nails for good. His death led to His victory over sin and death. The blobs of clay were God’s instruments to bring Jesus to His rightful place as Lord over all.
What about the things people toss at you and I? Certainly it is possible that God is purposely tossing some blobs of clay because He sees a need for reshaping in our lives. We need to consider that even in pain, God is working to make something useful and even beautiful out of rather plain jars.
Bruised by the latest insult, Jonathan lingered in the locker room shower until the other boys went home. He tried to say “sticks and stones . . .” but knew that name-calling felt just as painful as rocks.
People can be unkind. When someone hurts us, we feel like fighting back even though retaliation usually makes matters worse. The Bible says “turn the other cheek” and that is tough enough, but God also wants us to deal with our attitude towards rock-tossers. We can be bitter and angry but hateful emotions are as harmful to us as is their name-calling or sticks and stones.
When predicaments perplex me, I think of Romans 8:28, “In all things, we know that God works for the good of those who love Him . . . .” If God can use everything for my good, what about people who seem set to harm me? How can He turn that around and make it profitable for me?
I remember an Alaskan potter, a tall woman with burlap cape to her ankles. She ran a potter’s wheel at the Kenai Craft Show. Dissatisfied with the plain pot on her wheel, she stood up and frowned at it. She took a few pieces of unformed clay in her hand and leaving the motorized wheel still turning, she stepped back about ten feet and started firing those bits at the pot.
As she battered it, an amazing thing happened. At first the clay on the wheel wobbled and reeled under the blows, but gradually it changed shape. Slowly under the potter’s hand, the plain pot became a beautiful and useful vessel.
In a similar incident, God told the prophet Jeremiah to go down to the potter’s house. There he saw a potter working, “but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”
Then God told Jeremiah, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?” He went on to explain that He planned disaster that they might be shaped and turn from their evil ways. However, each one would continue “in the stubbornness of his evil heart.” In response, God said, “I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed. . . .”
God uses many methods to discipline His people. If we can compare unshaped clay with people who do not know or follow God, then God can use them in our lives, for our good. He used the Babylonians just like the Alaskan potter used the blobs to shape His people, the Jews. After their captivity in Babylon, they never again worshiped pagan idols.
When Nathan the prophet chastened David for his sin with Bathsheba and the killing of her husband, David felt the sting of his rebuke yet God used that pain to shape him into a beloved leader of Israel.
God even used “unshaped clay” against His own Son. Cruel men fully intended to destroy Jesus but God used their cross and nails for good. His death led to His victory over sin and death. The blobs of clay were God’s instruments to bring Jesus to His rightful place as Lord over all.
What about the things people toss at you and I? Certainly it is possible that God is purposely tossing some blobs of clay because He sees a need for reshaping in our lives. We need to consider that even in pain, God is working to make something useful and even beautiful out of rather plain jars.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Sticks and stones .............................. Parables 129
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”
In self defense the children cry, but anyone who has been called names like “fatso,” “horse face,” “stinky” or even worse, knows that chanting that little ditty is only a brave attempt to cover pain.
Name calling binds lives with chains of self-degradation and blinds eyes to true self-worth and potential. Worse yet, name calling almost never stays one-sided. It soon erupts into full-scale verbal wars. When that happens, as any child knows, sticks and stones are not far behind.
The targets are not always children. Name-callers fire attacks at leaders, followers and spouses. Ugly titles are flung at well-meaning people as well as just mean people. Some people even use God’s names in their assaults or worse yet, call God names while they are at it.
When God is involved, name-calling is simply cursing, swearing or blasphemy, yet blasphemy is not mere name-calling. It is actually an attack against God’s holy character, verbal or otherwise. Case in point: “The Last Temptation.”
I haven’t seen this latest effort from Hollywood, nor will I. God commands me to keep my eyes on Jesus, the genuine Jesus, not false portrayals (Hebrews 12), but I believe I have been well informed enough to make an evaluation. Even though some say this is “a deeply religious film,” its own press releases say the film portrays the Son of God in a war of doubt, unable to shut out impure thoughts and temptations. That is not the Jesus that is presented in Scripture. Perhaps the film makers would argue the definition of purity but their own advertising blurbs are enough for me to give this movie my rating. No stars - it slanders the spotless character of God’s Son.
Christians have reacted differently, but how does God react? I know He won’t recite a chant about sticks and stones or nasty names and their effect. He won’t “get even” - He is not like us - we would return insult for insult. He likely won’t hurl a bolt of lightning dropping the offenders on the spot, although He could. My guess is that He will not defend Himself at all. He doesn’t have to . . . He is God. He is not changed by names, insinuation or misrepresentation. He is who He is.
But I believe God is grieved. We who belong to Him feel His sorrow. While we write letters, picket, protest and pray (certainly we would be under fire if we didn’t take a stand) perhaps some have misinterpreted that inner-felt grief. While we feel sorrow for God, I believe He grieves not for Himself but for those who have misunderstood and misrepresented Him.
What then would He do about this film? Romans 5:8 says that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Those who create a god of their own imagination desperately need God’s mercy while there is still opportunity to avail themselves of it. To repeatedly deny the truth of Christ puts anyone on very shaky ground. He is not a personality to be taken lightly and exploited simply for the sake of box-office appeal. Those responsible for writing and producing “The Last Temptation” are writing their own ticket for judgement, and unless they repent, that ticket is a death certificate.
Inaction by God, at least for now, does not mean He overlooks this latest blasphemy. The Bible makes it clear: anyone who hardens himself against the truth of God is “heaping up wrath until the day of judgement” even if they hide that hardness in religious garb. (Romans 2:5). God’s judgement is “vengeance in flaming fire and punishment with everlasting destruction from His presence.” (2 Thessalonians 1:8,9)
But the Bible also says that “God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance.” Christ cannot be destroyed, by either nailing Him to a cross or portraying Him other than who He is, but those who do it can destroy their own eternal destiny.
May God have mercy - without it, His Word gives blasphemers no other hope.
In self defense the children cry, but anyone who has been called names like “fatso,” “horse face,” “stinky” or even worse, knows that chanting that little ditty is only a brave attempt to cover pain.
Name calling binds lives with chains of self-degradation and blinds eyes to true self-worth and potential. Worse yet, name calling almost never stays one-sided. It soon erupts into full-scale verbal wars. When that happens, as any child knows, sticks and stones are not far behind.
The targets are not always children. Name-callers fire attacks at leaders, followers and spouses. Ugly titles are flung at well-meaning people as well as just mean people. Some people even use God’s names in their assaults or worse yet, call God names while they are at it.
When God is involved, name-calling is simply cursing, swearing or blasphemy, yet blasphemy is not mere name-calling. It is actually an attack against God’s holy character, verbal or otherwise. Case in point: “The Last Temptation.”
I haven’t seen this latest effort from Hollywood, nor will I. God commands me to keep my eyes on Jesus, the genuine Jesus, not false portrayals (Hebrews 12), but I believe I have been well informed enough to make an evaluation. Even though some say this is “a deeply religious film,” its own press releases say the film portrays the Son of God in a war of doubt, unable to shut out impure thoughts and temptations. That is not the Jesus that is presented in Scripture. Perhaps the film makers would argue the definition of purity but their own advertising blurbs are enough for me to give this movie my rating. No stars - it slanders the spotless character of God’s Son.
Christians have reacted differently, but how does God react? I know He won’t recite a chant about sticks and stones or nasty names and their effect. He won’t “get even” - He is not like us - we would return insult for insult. He likely won’t hurl a bolt of lightning dropping the offenders on the spot, although He could. My guess is that He will not defend Himself at all. He doesn’t have to . . . He is God. He is not changed by names, insinuation or misrepresentation. He is who He is.
But I believe God is grieved. We who belong to Him feel His sorrow. While we write letters, picket, protest and pray (certainly we would be under fire if we didn’t take a stand) perhaps some have misinterpreted that inner-felt grief. While we feel sorrow for God, I believe He grieves not for Himself but for those who have misunderstood and misrepresented Him.
What then would He do about this film? Romans 5:8 says that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Those who create a god of their own imagination desperately need God’s mercy while there is still opportunity to avail themselves of it. To repeatedly deny the truth of Christ puts anyone on very shaky ground. He is not a personality to be taken lightly and exploited simply for the sake of box-office appeal. Those responsible for writing and producing “The Last Temptation” are writing their own ticket for judgement, and unless they repent, that ticket is a death certificate.
Inaction by God, at least for now, does not mean He overlooks this latest blasphemy. The Bible makes it clear: anyone who hardens himself against the truth of God is “heaping up wrath until the day of judgement” even if they hide that hardness in religious garb. (Romans 2:5). God’s judgement is “vengeance in flaming fire and punishment with everlasting destruction from His presence.” (2 Thessalonians 1:8,9)
But the Bible also says that “God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance.” Christ cannot be destroyed, by either nailing Him to a cross or portraying Him other than who He is, but those who do it can destroy their own eternal destiny.
May God have mercy - without it, His Word gives blasphemers no other hope.
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